Court orders Sri Lankan released after years in border jail
PETER PRENGAMAN, AP, Monday, March 20, 2006
SAN DIEGO (AP) - After more than four years in jail, Ahilan Nadarajah
will soon gain the freedom he sought when he fled Sri Lankan
government forces that he said pistol-whipped him, forced his head
into a plastic bag with gasoline and left him hanging upside down for
hours.
Since arriving in the United States in October 2001, Nadarajah has
been detained on the same accusations that almost got him killed in
Sri Lanka. He was suspected of being a member of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group listed as a terrorist
organization by the U.S. State Department.
In a tersely worded 37-page decision, Judge Sidney R. Thomas said
Nadarajah's detention is "unreasonable, unjustified and in violation
of federal law." The decision went on to call the government's
reading of a past decision, which it claimed allowed for prolonged
detention, as "patently absurd."
. . .
In June and August of 2004, a "special agent" presented the
government's case, based on State Department information and
interviews with Sri Lankan experts.
The testimony included an informant's claim that Nadarajah and a
female detainee and Tamil Tigers member had made a phone call from
the detention facility in May 2003, allegedly ordering that someone
in Canada be killed.
Asked how they could have made a call together at a gender-separated
facility, the agent answered: "'I could only say that's what I wrote.
I mean I, I don't know,'" the ruling said.
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/14232446p-15054608c.html